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'I just knew that I had to do it': Sahher Bambba on ‘The Empire’

Actor Sahher Bambba, who recently appeared on Disney + Hotstar’s new series The Empire, joined NewsX for an exclusive conversation for its special series NewsX India A-List. As part of the conversation, the actor opened up about the response to the series, her first response when the show was offered to her, her experience of […]

Actor Sahher Bambba, who recently appeared on Disney + Hotstar’s new series The Empire, joined NewsX for an exclusive conversation for its special series NewsX India A-List. As part of the conversation, the actor opened up about the response to the series, her first response when the show was offered to her, her experience of working with Kunal Kapoor and much more. Read excerpts:

Speaking about the response to the series ‘The Empire’ on Disney + Hotstar, her role and performance, Sahher said, “It has been overwhelming waking up to amazing messages, people appreciating my performance, people loving the show. It is a very good feeling because the shooting process took a little longer than the usual due to the pandemic. All of us were really waiting for the release to happen. There was a lot of buzz around the show and people are loving it. They are liking me in the show. I am just grateful to everyone who is liking the show.”

Sharing insights into how the show came your way and what was her first response when she was offered the character of Maham, aka, Mallika-E-Hindustan, she said, “Actually, I was the last person to be casted on the show. The makers wanted to start shooting ASAP. The casting director called me one evening and he said, ‘You have to go and meet Nikhil sir tomorrow because he is doing this show . Go test for it and see if you like it.’ I went and met Nikhil sir. When he started talking about my character and the show in general, I just knew that I had to do it and there were no two ways about it. I was very excited as these opportunities are very rare, where you get to play such a character on-screen. It was definitely on my bucket list to do something in the periodic zone and that happened with The Empire and Maham’s character. I love the character and I was very excited to be a part of the show. I remember the first time I walked on the set, I was gobsmacked just looking at the detailing and the costumes. It was just surreal.”

Talking about her experience on sets and working with an ensemble cast, including Kunal Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, Dino Morea, Rahul Dev, she expressed, “It was amazing. Also, the fact that everybody was so focused, everybody just wanted to get their Urdu right, their scenes right. There was a lot of focus and discipline in that sense. We helped each other to perform better. Kunal and I shared a great working rapport. Mitakshara and Nikhil sir are absolute geniuses, when it comes to directing and their briefs are so amazing. It just makes our work a lot easier.”

When asked if she found any difference in working for films and digital and would she be open to doing both in the future, she responded, “It is pretty much the same. This was a little different because it is from a different era altogether but I think the process and the filmmaking aspect of it is the same.”

She added, “Not a preference as such but I would want to do more films also. Having said that, I am never going to say no to a good project just because it is going to be an OTT release. The pandemic has changed so many things and the lines are pretty blur. Definitely, I would love to maintain a balance between OTT and films. “

Check out the entire interview on NewsX YouTube:

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